Thirteen Hours

'For the organs,' said Vusi.

'Bliksem,' said the Commissioner. 'We better get people to that hospital for the records.'

'Mat Joubert is there already, Commissioner. He's got a big team with him.'

'So they bring people in and then they kill them?'

'Not always, Commissioner,' said Vusi. 'Apparently that was the price the people were required to pay for a better life in South Africa. They had to donate a kidney or a lung or part of their liver. Or part of an eye, corneas, and bone marrow as well. I'm still trying to get my head around it. Apparently you can donate a lot of your organs without the consequences being too serious.'

'And the hearts?'

'We will have to see, Commissioner, because the website talks about hearts as well. But the one Rachel Anderson saw, the one that de Klerk and Chitsinga murdered at Kariba, he had AIDS. Smith says they had test kits with them - before they loaded a person under the trailers, they drew blood and then they tested it.

They realised that man had AIDS. So they took him out, and they couldn't afford to just let him go.'

'What kind of people are these?' John Afrika asked.

'That's what I asked Duncan Blake,' said Griessel. 'And he said Africa took everything he had, all his dreams, Africa tore out his heart. Why couldn't he do that to Africa?'

Griessel's cell phone rang shrilly. He looked at the screen, got up and went aside to answer it.

The Commissioner leaned forward, looked at the website, sighed deeply, listening to Griessel making noises of disbelief.

Benny Griessel came back to the desk. 'That was Mat,' he said. 'Commissioner, this thing is going to get ugly.'

'Why?' There was a lot of worry in John Afrika's voice.

'There's a government Minister in the hospital records.'

'One of our Ministers?'

'Yes, Commissioner. Liver transplant.'

'Ag nee, liewe fok,' said John Afrika.

Fransman Dekker had heard the coloured SAPS computer specialist was genius. So he was expecting someone like Bill Gates. What he got was a slightly built man with the face of a schoolboy, two missing front teeth, a big Afro hairstyle, no sense of humour and a pronounced lisp. 'Thith ith candy floth,' the genius said to Dekker in Wouter Steenkamp's office.

'Excuse me, bro'?' Dekker asked, because he couldn't understand a single word.

'Candy floth.'

'Candy floss?'

'That'th right.'

'How so, my bro'?'

'Illusionth. A PDF pathword ith utheleth.'

'A PDF pathword?'

'No, a pathword.'

'Password?'

'That'th right. People think if you have a PDF pathword then you're thecure. But it'th not thecure.'

'So how did they do it?'

'Thith ou ...' he pointed at the computer, which belonged to Steenkamp, '... got the pathword-protected PDF'th for every thinger'th thaleth from the dithtributor. By email. Lookth like it wath hith job to thend it on to the thinger when the money wath tranthferred.'

'Right.'

'The thinger thinkth only he hath the pathword, tho he thinkth the record company can't change the thtatement of THEE-D thales. He thinkth he'th getting all the money.'

'Because it comes from the dith ... er, the distributor?'

'Yeth, the dithtributor puth the pathword on, but emailth it to thith ou. And thith ou emailth it to the thinger.'

'Right.'

'But look here ...' the computer boffin opened a program. 'Thith ith thoftware, Advanthed PDF Pathword Recovery, Enteprithe Edition, made by Elcomthoft. You can buy it from their webthite, the prithe ith jutht under a thouthand rand, but then you can do what you like with a PDF, even if it hath a forty- bit encrypthion with Thunder Tableth. It meanth thith ith candy floth, any pathword protecthion.'

'So Steenkamp could get the singer's password and he could change the statement?'

'Exthactly. He copieth and pathteth the PDF tableth into Microthoft Exthell, changeth the tableth, maketh a new PDF, becauth heth got Adobe Acrobat Profethional, the Thee Eth Four edithion, brand new, thtate of the art, and he puth the thame pathword protecthion on again. Tho the thinger thinkth it ith the original PDF, he doethn't know he'th been conned.'

'How much did they skim?'

'It lookth like it varieth, from ten to forty per thent, depending on how much the thinger thells.The big guyth, like Ivan Nell, they took up to forty per thent off him on hith latht THEE-D.'

'Fucking hell.'

'My thentimentth exthactly.'

18:37-19:51

Chapter 49

Precisely thirteen hours since they had woken Benny Griessel in his flat, around 18:37, he told John Afrika: 'Commissioner, I have to be in Canal Walk by seven o'clock, please, will you excuse me?'

The Commissioner stood up and put a hand on Griessel's shoulder. 'Captain, I just want to say one thing. If there was ever a man who deserved promotion, it's you. I never doubted you would solve this one. Never.'

'Thank you, Commissioner.'

'Let Vusi finish up here. Go and do your thing, we'll talk again tomorrow.'

'Thanks, Benny,' Vusi said from the table where the contents of the file were beginning to swell.

'Pleasure, Vusi,' and then he was out of there in a rush. There was no time to change his shirt, but he could tell Anna the story of how the hole came to be there. Then he remembered he owed his son a phone call. Fritz, who had phoned him with the news that he was quitting school, that their band, Wet & Orde, (with an ampersand), had got a fat gig, that they were 'opening for Gian Groen and Zinkplaat on a tour, Dad, they are talking about twenty-five thousand for a month, that's more than six thousand per out and Griessel had said: 'I'll call you back, things are a bit rough here.'

He got into his car, took his cell phone's hands-free kit out of the cubby hole, plugged it in and drove away to Buitengracht and the Nl.

'Hi, Dad.'

'How's it going, Fritz?'

'No, cool, Dad, cool.'

'Six thousand rand for each ou in the band?'

'Yes, Dad. Awesome, and they pay for our meals and accommodation and everything.'